Former Sega CEO to head Ngmoco publishing arm

Sega of America CEO Simon Jeffrey has left the company to head up the new …

Many in the games industry were surprised last year when Electronic Arts veteran Neil Young left the company to form Ngmoco—which would focus entirely on iPhone game development. Now that iPhone gaming has become big business, the move doesn't seem so strange, so it's not that surprising that Ngmoco has lured another industry veteran into its fold. Simon Jeffrey—former CEO at Sega of America—will be heading up Ngmoco's brand new publishing division, dubbed Plus Publishing.

Though few details have been revealed as of yet, the goal of the new publishing arm is to team up with other iPhone developers, giving them access to some of Ngmoco's publishing tools. The biggest of these seems to be the company's forthcoming social network, which is aiming to bring an Xbox Live style network to the handheld device.

"...Building a community of gamers in these kinds of experience is really core to our future strategy, and one of the things that will be leveraged highly in the work that Simon will be doing," Ngmoco co-founder Joe Keene told Gamasutra. "Making sure we can always address that audience, and that that audience is connected to one another and communicating with one another about what they're doing, what they're playing—competing with each other, challenging each other...that, we think, is an important new way to keep successful."

As for what types of developers Plus will be courting, Jeffrey says it will be wide-ranging. "We want to make sure that the people who want to work with us want to work with us for the right reasons, but I think there's going to be a fairly open-door policy," he explained. "People who believe in the Ngmoco values, we'd very much like to talk to—small publishers, indies, large publishers, IP holders, pretty much anyone."

The company will be fleshing out its plans for the future over the coming weeks, so it shouldn't be too long before we hear more details on the venture.